I am the child of a stranger, produced through an anonymous sperm donation at BCM. Despite writing all 600 men from my donor's former medical school yearbooks, receiving 250 responses, and going through 18 DNA tests, I have yet to find my missing family.
While many other countries banned anonymous donations by the late 1980s to early 1990s and instead only use donors willing to release their identity, anonymous egg and sperm donations are still allowed and frequently practiced in the U.S.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

I happened to find this today. It is a nice article explaining why the current movies do not accurately portray the seriousness or reality of sperm donation, and my blog is mentioned at the end. This author also emphasizes the fact that the needs of the children produced have been an after-thought.

Promoting her new movie, The Switch, about a single, fortysomething woman who decides to have a baby with the help of a sperm donor, Aniston had this to say at a press conference: “Women …know that they don’t have to settle with a man just to have that child…Times have changed, and what is amazing is that we do have so many options these days.’” On his show, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly responded by calling Aniston “destructive to our society.”

Aniston hit back: “For those who’ve not yet found their [Prince Charming such as] Bill O’Reilly, I’m just glad science has provided a few other options.” The rest is P.R. history.

By “amazing” options, Aniston, who happens also to be a fortysomething single woman, was referring to sperm donation, an increasingly popular way to create fatherless families. O’Reilly’s charge to the contrary, most single women who have a baby through donor sperm struggle for years to find husbands so they could raise their children with fathers before finally concluding they had no choice but to go it alone.

Given the ranks of can’t-commit child men out there, you have to have some sympathy for their plight.

But choice mothers, as the older, more educated donor moms often call themselves, use a language of empowerment that lends some weight to O’Reilly’s accusation. Aniston herself is guilty of trivializing men’s role in children’ lives when she says that women “don’t have to settle with a man just to have a child.”

Notice the belittling words “settle” and “just.” The very term “choice mothers” frames artificial insemination as a matter of women’s reproductive rights; only the woman’s decision-making carries moral weight, fathers be damned. Similarly, advocates often cite the benefits of freedom from “donor interference” that comes with single motherhood.

Adding to the implicit father-bashing is anonymous sperm donation. Some choice mothers go to male friends to get the necessary reproductive material.

But most buy their sperm and eggs from banks committed to protecting the identity of the donors – or to be more precise, the sellers. Children grow up knowing the identity of neither their biological fathers nor, since the same sperm donor can produce a dozen or more children, their half-siblings.

To believe the title of another movie released this summer about sperm donor families, The Kids are Alright, this anonymity is nothing to worry about; the kids are better off not knowing. But if it’s true that people don’t care about the identity of the man whose DNA constitutes half of their genetic make-up, we should be ready to substitute the wisdom of Jennifer Aniston for storytellers ranging from Homer, James Joyce, and the writers at Marvel comics.

Ironically, choice mothers themselves are enacting the power of biological rootedness when they insist on bearing their own children rather than adopting an already motherless and fatherless child.

Up until now, no one has bothered to find out what children might think about the laissez-faire approach to fathers. But a first-of-its kind report from the Commission on Parenthood’s Future, “My Daddy’s Name is Donor,” compares a large sample of donor-conceived young adults with a group who grew up with their biological parents.

The report adds up to a troubling picture of adult entitlement and child confusion. While choice mothers have their way, their kids are more likely to suffer malaise about their identity, as well as to abuse drugs and alcohol and to have run-ins with the police.

Meanwhile, donor children are speaking up on websites like A Tangled Web and Child of a Stranger. In Canada, a class-action law suit against the anonymity policy of sperm banks is winding its way through the courts. The legal struggle is reminiscent of similar efforts by adopted children to open up the records of those agencies.

If the donor kids are successful, will their efforts also open up a more serious discussion about fathers? Not if Jennifer Aniston has anything to say about it.

Kay S. Hymowitz is the William E. Simon fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.

1 comment:

wow, ur blog's quite self pitying- oh woe u. The DNA you share with a 'sperm donor' does not psychological connect you with that individual, therefore it is not of real importance. They merely provided an ingredient to the final product - not a father or dad, for that is psychological- but DNA that is often wasted or in this case provided as a gift. One does not usual question a gift, but accept it with the knowledge that it now belongs to you and what you do with it in the future is your choice, thus they no longer have any responsibility in regards to it. Thus to expect a donor to later take responsibility of their gift by intruding into their personal life is both selfish and a contradiction to the 'gift'. Their involvement is done and should not be forced to believe other wise. DNA does not equal familiy! Why you ask? - because 'family' is psychological, it is a choice, it's shareing memories, experiences, a bond! The bottom line is, if they wanted to be held accountable (be part of your life)they would not of presented themselves as anonymous.

***If you found this site through searching the internet, you may get stuck on one blog entry. Please click on the title of my blog - Child of a Stranger: Conception through Anonymous Sperm Donation - to see additional writings. At the end, there is a FAQ section addressing the questions most frequently asked to me. If you have suggestions for blog entries, ideas on finding my paternal family or brother with Down Syndrome, or just would like to talk, email me at kathleen.ruby.labounty@gmail.com. Please send media requests here as well.***

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